@conference {2668, title = {The Development of a Web-Based CAT in China}, booktitle = {IACAT 2017 Conference}, year = {2017}, month = {08/2017}, publisher = {Niigata Seiryo University}, organization = {Niigata Seiryo University}, address = {Niigata, Japan}, abstract = {

Cognitive ability assessment has been widely used as the recruitment tool in hiring potential employees. Traditional cognitive ability tests have been encountering threats from item-exposures and long time for answering. Especially in China, campus recruitment thinks highly of short answering time and anti-cheating. Beisen, as the biggest native online assessment software provider, developed a web-based CAT for cognitive ability which assessing verbal, quantitative, logical and spatial ability in order to decrease answering times, improve assessment accuracy and reduce threats from cheating and faking in online ability test. The web-based test provides convenient testing for examinees who can access easily to the test via internet just by login the test website at any time and any place through any Internet-enabled devices (e.g., laptops, IPADs, and smart phones).

We designed the CAT following strategies of establishing item bank, setting starting point, item selection, scoring and terminating. Additionally, we pay close attention to administrating the test via web. For the CAT procedures, we employed online calibration for establishing a stable and expanding item bank, and integrated maximum Fisher information, \α-stratified strategy and randomization for item selection and coping with item exposures. Fixed-length and variable-length strategies were combined in terminating the test. For fulfilling the fluid web-based testing, we employed cloud computing techniques and designed each computing process subtly. Distributed computation was used to process scoring which executes EAP and item selecting at high speed. Caching all items to the servers in advance helps shortening the process of loading items to examinees\’ terminal equipment. Horizontally scalable cloud servers function coping with great concurrency. The massive computation in item selecting was conversed to searching items from an information matrix table.

We examined the average accuracy, bank usage and computing performance in the condition of laboratory and real testing. According to a test for almost 28000 examinees, we found that bank usage is averagely 50\%, and that 80\% tests terminate at test information of 10 and averagely at 9.6. In context of great concurrency, the testing is unhindered and the process of scoring and item selection only takes averagely 0.23s for each examiner.

Session Video

}, keywords = {China, Web-Based CAT}, author = {Chongli Liang and Danjun Wang and Dan Zhou and Peida Zhan} } @conference {2642, title = {The Implementation of Nationwide High Stakes Computerized (adaptive) Testing in the Netherlands}, booktitle = {IACAT 2017 Conference}, year = {2017}, month = {08/2017}, publisher = {Niigata Seiryo University}, organization = {Niigata Seiryo University}, address = {Niigata, Japan}, abstract = {

In this presentation the challenges of implementation of (adaptive) digital testing in the Facet system in the Netherlands is discussed. In the Netherlands there is a long tradition of implementing adaptive testing in educational settings. Already since the late nineties of the last century adaptive testing was used mostly in low stakes testing. Several CATs were implemented in student monitoring systems for primary education and in the general subjects language and arithmetic in vocational education. The only nationwide implemented high stakes CAT is the WISCAT-pabo: an arithmetic test for students in the first year of primary school teacher colleges. The psychometric advantages of item based adaptive testing are obvious. For example efficiency and high measurement precision. But there are also some disadvantages such as the impossibility of reviewing items during and after the test. During the test the student is not in control of his own test; e.q . he can only navigate forward to the next item. This is one of the reasons other methods of testing, such as multistage-testing, with adaptivity not on the item level but on subtest level, has become more popular to use in high stakes testing.

A main challenge of computerized (adaptive) testing is the implementation of the item bank and the test workflow in a digital system. Since 2014 a nationwide new digital system (Facet) was introduced in the Netherlands, with connections to the digital systems of different parties based on international standards (LTI and QTI). The first nationwide tests in the Facet-system were flexible exams Dutch and arithmetic for vocational (and secondary) education, taken as item response theory-based equated linear multiple forms tests, which are administered during 5 periods in a year. Nowadays there are some implementations of different methods of (multistage) adaptive testing in the same Facet system (DTT en Acet).

In this conference, other presenters of Cito will elaborate on the psychometric characteristics of this other adaptive testing methods. In this contribution, the system architecture and interoperability of the Facet system will be explained. The emphasis is on the implementation and the problems to be solved by using this digital system in all phases of the (adaptive) testing process: item banking, test construction, designing, publication, test taking, analyzing and reporting to the student. An evaluation of the use of the system will be presented.

Session Video

}, keywords = {High stakes CAT, Netherlands, WISCAT}, url = {https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Kn1PvgioUYaOJ5pykq-_XWnwDU15rRsf}, author = {Mia van Boxel and Theo Eggen} } @article {398, title = {A comparison of item-selection methods for adaptive tests with content constraints}, journal = {Journal of Educational Measurement}, volume = {42}, number = {3}, year = {2005}, pages = {283-302}, publisher = {Blackwell Publishing: United Kingdom}, abstract = {In test assembly, a fundamental difference exists between algorithms that select a test sequentially or simultaneously. Sequential assembly allows us to optimize an objective function at the examinee{\textquoteright}s ability estimate, such as the test information function in computerized adaptive testing. But it leads to the non-trivial problem of how to realize a set of content constraints on the test{\textemdash}a problem more naturally solved by a simultaneous item-selection method. Three main item-selection methods in adaptive testing offer solutions to this dilemma. The spiraling method moves item selection across categories of items in the pool proportionally to the numbers needed from them. Item selection by the weighted-deviations method (WDM) and the shadow test approach (STA) is based on projections of the future consequences of selecting an item. These two methods differ in that the former calculates a projection of a weighted sum of the attributes of the eventual test and the latter a projection of the test itself. The pros and cons of these methods are analyzed. An empirical comparison between the WDM and STA was conducted for an adaptive version of the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), which showed equally good item-exposure rates but violations of some of the constraints and larger bias and inaccuracy of the ability estimator for the WDM.}, keywords = {Adaptive Testing, Algorithms, content constraints, item selection method, shadow test approach, spiraling method, weighted deviations method}, isbn = {0022-0655 (Print)}, author = {van der Linden, W. J.} }